Loyal CC follower Big Paws spotted this Thunderbird on holiday in Sonoma, and what a good reason this is for having gone there. He was only able to get one shot, but it’s enough to start some detective work. The Bullet ‘Bird (not just because of the superb name, but that certainly helps) is probably my favourite American car (though sometimes it’s the Corvette Sting Ray, or maybe the 1957 Corvette) and this example would catch anyone’s eye.

From my vantage point in England, this looks very much like a Ford Thunderbird Sportback or a Chevrolet Nomad-type derivative. Given just this photo, I was initially thinking “I’m not aware of it as a Thunderbird variant but maybe Ford built such a version”. After all, a Thunderbird in the UK is a bit of an event, and not seeing all the variants, especially low volume ones, the notion seems quite plausible.

In search of more knowledge, in the spirit of academic rigour and intellectual certainty that pervades CC, some research was necessary. The key point that was brought home to me by Jason Shafer was that this is not a Ford factory product but an aftermarket conversion.

He also flagged up that the roof panel came from an Oldsmobile Vista-Cruiser (another great name for a car), probably a 1964 or 1965. And Paul Niedermeyer told me the whole rear roof structure, including the rear side windows, came from the same car to, as this picture makes quite clear.

Normally, roof conversions like this, from the Vista-Cruiser (or Buick Sport Wagon) would be asscoiated with maybe a van conversion or onto another older estate car, but to see something like this, using the windows and the roof of an estate car on a sports car, is almost certainly unique.

Having just written the last sentence, I then find this Dodge Challenrger Vista-Cruiser mix on the web, which somehow doesn’t work as well.

Photo from Hooniverse

Further research showed that this car had been advertised for sale in 2012 and 2013 on Hooniverse and Hemmings, and may still be for sale, or for sale again, going by the notice in the rear window. The photos on the Hemmings and Hooniverse entries also show the rear of the car, with rear tailgate made of a flat piece of plexiglass above a rear panel with an attractive convex curve running across the back of the car, consistent with an adaptation of the standard car, and the regular Thunderbird rear lights, changing which is probably still a capital offence in Dearborn. The piece on Hemmings is well worth reading, and has links to an older article from Special Interest Autos in 1997.

So, a unique car, spotted in California by a tourist from Britain. And, externally at least, in my opinion, it’s a stunner. Why did Ford not do something like this? After all, Volvo did with the 1800ES. We might still have a Thunderbird if they had, and I might be able to have a Ford Vista-Bird Thunder Cruiser!

Exactly, what is not to like about this? Not much for me!

Thanks to Jason Shafer and Paul Niedermayer for their help in the research for this piece.

As soon as I saw the first picture I knew I’d seen that car online before. An excellently done conversion. The Vista Cruiser roof matches the lines of the T-bird as well as the donor car it came from.

I think the end result may have looked even better if they just used the side windows and fabricated a non-Vista roof, i.e. without the raised section. It would look more sporty. It still looks cool, and unique, the way it is though.

+ another.
I would never have thought of combining the two; probably because I regard that generation of T-bird as iconic. But this conversion is so well thought-out and executed, it looks like a factory show special!

A great looker,unlike the Challenger.Nobody makes wagons like the Americans.I don’t think Ford would have OK’d a Thunderwagon as it could have taken sales away from the LTDs and Mercury wagons.Ford took great care not to have similar cars slugging it out in the showrooms.(Unlike the competition in America and the UK).
The Thunderwagon would have worked well with the horrible 67 Thunderbird and would have significantly improved it’s appearance.
This must surely be one of one though I’m sure if there’s any more a CCer will find them.
I did several drawings for murals on custom cars,vans and bikes like the one in the scrap yard in the 70s

Sonoma Valley is also a great place to visit if you like going to wineries. I visited several while I was out there last summer. Our guide had a funny line comparing Sonoma and the more publicized Napa Valley, “Sonoma is where you want to go for wine. Napa makes auto parts”.

Given that the Nomad didn’t sell in huge numbers, I can’t see Ford actually thinking along these lines, but as a custom, this is brilliant.
Two cars that different should absolutely not work that well together.

Very nice, it looks perfect. Reminds me of a scale model I made many years ago when I “grafted” a station wagon roof on an AMT `64 T Bird convertible model. I even painted it almost the same color like the green none.The coolest wagon ever, even nicer than the Nomad. I want one!

I’ve never been a big fan of the ’61-’63 Bullet-Bird and this is done so well (down to the whitewalls and wheelcovers), I actually like it better than the factory car. I much prefer the cleaned-up ’64-’66 Flair-Bird and this conversion probably wouldn’t come off as well with that car. But the Vista-Cruiser roof integrates perfectly with the busier lines and ornamentation of the earlier car and I’d love to see a picture of it with the quarter windows lowered.

The only thing that would make it better is, as someone else suggested, they’d have skipped the Vista-Cruiser roof and just went with a standard flat-top. There doesn’t appear to be any third row seating so the clear panel above the cargo area would be essentially pointless. In fact, worse than pointless as it would do a fine job of baking anything that was back there. Was there a Olds station wagon that didn’t have the Vista-Cruiser roof, or were they all so equipped?

The Flairbird wagon from the linked website looks okay, but I’m not sure how good it would have been from the rear with the loop bumper (not to mention how practical it would have been for a tailgate). It’s not that swell as a four-door hardtop, either. But that wood paneling fits perfectly with the Flairbird’s side sculpturing.

I was thinking Pinto Runabout. Either way, it looks very crude and IMO really detracts from the beauty and craftsmanship of this. Full disclosure, I am rather a stickler for the concept that if you are going to go thru all the trouble to do a wagon conversion, it seems dumb not to create a full working tailgate or lift gate, and if you can’t figure out the engineering to do it, then the car is not suitable for the conversion.

Hello Tatra87, you are right, the Peugeot 504 Riviera made by Pininfarina is THE shooting break, that’s why I made it as 1/43 modelcar one year ago. Only few samples are still available.
Can you please tell me where you found the picture ? I am looking for more pictures of the Rivera for adding to my collection …
Thanks !
Fred from Paris.

A buddy of mine from Basel Switzerland had a 1981 mid-sized Oldsmobile built and badged in Bienne Switzerland as Cutlass Cruiser…as it should be obvious. BUT…by the official registration permit IT WAS named as Vista Cruiser!

I have to admit it – I like it! Ford should have built something similar, but even the Chevy Nomad’s sales numbers weren’t good enough to keep a stylish two-door wagon on the market in it’s original form.

The flat hatch glass is the only thing that keeps this from looking like something from Ford for the 1962 Auto Show circuit.

As much as I love wagons and bulletbirds, I can’t see that there would have been a market for these. “Sporty wagon” just wasn’t a category in the U.S. in those years. And really hasn’t been since then, either.

To me it’s the Vista roof that sets it apart from what many might have been speculated in brain games about a T-Bird wagon.

What is remarkable is that it all goes together so well, though it must have caused some fits for those who put hundreds of hours into making it. Only by serendipity could the slant of the rear seat side window match that of the Oldsmobile Vista side panel and side window. The Dodge Challenger/Vista Cruiser does not match up, which is one reason why it looks cobbled-together.

The Vista-Bird’s flat plexiglass rear window doesn’t quite match up to the standard of the rest of the car, but I doubt there is a curved glass window that would have fit.

I agree, the vista roof fits in with the jet-age styling. Presumably the original wagon would have had a flat, retractable rear window so it is just the execution that needs to be improved. I’m a fan of the shooting brake, and this along with the Corvette/Camaro etc based ones illustrate exactly what they are. Not just any old 2-door wagon.

This car reminds me a lot of the Reliant Scimitar Triplex! I’m glad you found this and shared the picture Big Paws.

This wagon has been for sale for a long time. I’ve seen lots of photographs on it. While great in concept, it falls down in the details. That big plexiglas rear hatch is one. The interior is another. Somebody threw away the excellent ’62 Thunderbird bucket seats and substituted something that just doesn’t look right. Also, no power windows on this ‘Bird, so it’s a ‘no’ for me. The conversion was done quite some time ago, so perhaps it’s time for a re-do?

Nevermind the Thundercruisernomad, what about that EPIC custom van with the Conan paperback artwork and the ’65 galaxie front end molded into the front grill!!! Someone should have saved that for the eventual custom van art exhibit at the Smithsonian. Classic!

It’s obviously in a pick and pull yard, so it’s probably long ago crushed. It is safe to say that was one of a kind and never to be duplicated…for better or for worse.

I have a bunch of Corcel brochures – picked them up off eBay last year to find out more about the car. The nose is too long, but other than that it has interesting MkV Cortinaesque styling. Actually, given it was Brazilian, that’d be Taunusesque styling. I’d bet the front indicators, headlights and grille were actually purloined from the Taunus parts bin. Three-stud wheels too, which look totally wrong to my eyes!

The company I worked for in the late 70s has a branch office in Brazil, so I asked the guys down there to mail some up. Got one on their ethanol fueled cars, one on the DelRey and on on their vans. No specific Corcel brochures though.

The nose is too long,

The R12 has a longitudinal drivetrain, so you’re going to get a long nose, just like an Audi.

it has interesting MkV Cortinaesque styling.

Agreed. Ford Europe had some very nice looking models in the late 70s. There is a sequence in the old “Sleepers” miniseries where the guys are on the lam and the driver is flogging their tired, but sweet looking, late 70s English Ford wagon like a Ferrari.

Nope. The ‘bullet birds’ were known for their nose-high appearing stance. It’s mostly an optical illusion, as the body tapers from front to back. Easy enough to drop the front end an inch or two, which is what I would do.

I love vehicular mashups, even more so when the end result looks as natural as the Vista-Bird Thunder-Cruiser. The level of thought, creativity and craftmanship that goes into such conversions is really rather awesome.

The problem with the Bullet Birds was that formal roofline on a swoopy main body, but – in a similar vain to the wagon – someone took care of that to create what the Bullet Bird should have had in the 1st place… The 60 Galaxy hardtop’s roof.

Howdy y’all. I realise that this post comes a bit late in the day but I just ran into something that might be of interest vis a vis this post. I was doing some research into Ford’s Advanced Styling Studio under Alex Tremulis in the mid-’50s (source of all their weird and wonderful futuristic dream cars of the 1955-1962 era) and happened across an obituary on Car & Driver’s website of William Clay Ford Sr., youngest of the three Ford brothers who took over post-war Ford. (http://blog.caranddriver.com/william-clay-ford-1925-2014/)

The article contains a photo that is very interesting for many reasons. Taken in 1957 it shows the newly-appointed boss of Ford Styling Bill Ford leaning against a green Di-Noc’d full-size clay model and, going from right to left in the foreground, George Walker, VP of Styling, and Elwood Engel, designer of the 1961 Lincoln Continental who later succeeded Virgil Exner as head of styling at Chrysler. In the background can be seen half a dozen other Ford stylists of the time and two more full-sized clays — one green and one red — as well as a 1/4 scale model of the XP2000 (one of Tremulis’ Jetsons-style creations) front and center.

Judging from the two green clay models, the location is probably the Lincoln studio as they appear to be styling proposals for the soon to be released 1958 Lincoln Continental Mk III. The 1958-1960 Contis were all-new with unit-body construction (as opposed to the traditional body on frame) and Ford built a brand-new factory to produce them (Wixom) for that very reason. In between, though largely obscured behind George Walker and a couple of the stylists, is what appears to be a design proposal for the also soon to be introduced 1958 Ford Thunderbird, that is to say the 4-seat Square Bird, resplendent in red. Although not a lot of people are aware of this, despite being badged as a Ford, the T-Bird was built by Lincoln. The all-new 1958 Thunderbird, like the Lincolns, was also unibody and designed from the ground up to be assembled at Wixom on the same production line as its bigger siblings.

A closer look at that model reveals the distinctive lines of a station wagon, a 4-door station wagon at that. Obviously no such thing ever saw the light of day but the story it tells is that a range of body styles was taken into consideration in the studio. Anyone familiar with the development of the Mustang five years later will know that there were a variety of proposals including a 4-door sedan so a station wagon T-Bird full-sized clay model should come as no great shock. There may well have been a 2-door station wagon proposal too, who knows?